Grant: Catalyst Grant: Primary and Community-Based Healthcare

In Canada, wait times that describe how long patients wait to have an operation or a special procedure after seeing a specialist physician are now being published for patients, health providers and health planners. However, patients and their families experience other types of waits within the health care system. For example, little is known about the wait times patients experience after their family physician refers them to see either a specialty physician or to undergo specific diagnostic tests. One reason for the lack of data is the difficulty obtaining data from family physicians' practices. However, more family physicians are now using electronic medical records (EMRs) as part of their clinical care. These EMRs may potentially provide information which can be used to measure wait times, using family physician appointments as the starting-points. The purpose of this study is to use data, extracted from the EMRs of community-based family physicians, to determine these wait times. It is important to measure these wait times because it can inform health planners about geographical areas across Canada which are experiencing excessively long waits, with the hope that additional health resources may be provided to these areas. This information may also be incorporated into the newer primary care reform models, so that they might include health care personnel such as physiotherapists and nurses who would provide help to patients with specific conditions until such time as they might see the specialist physician.